This & That Jam led us in a jam-making workshop today.  This local jam-making company makes inventive jams with local ingredients.  Drawing on what was available at the farm, we set out to make a parsnip jam.

First, we chopped up all the veggies.

While we chopped parsnips, Ben (above) told us that parsnip jam is pretty much only made in Tasmania.  While the Tasmanians were decimated by colonialism, the colonialists that remained have continued to make parsnip jam.  They usually make it with some lemon juice and sugar, but the one we made was a lot more interesting with garlic, rosemary, rice vinegar, a little powdered mustard, and, of course, sugar.

Then, we boiled everything together:

And then we added sugar and let it boil til it started thickening up.  We poured it in jars that had already been boiled to sanitize them.  With jam in and the lids on, we boiled the jars to get them to seal.  Now the jam can hang out in a pantry for up to a year and still be just as good as when it went in the jars.

I LOVE cheese.  Most people LOVE cheese.  But have you ever considered how cheese is made?  It seems too complicated to even ponder doing yourself, right? Here’s what I knew before Friday’s cheese-making workshop: Step 1) Get some cow or goat’s milk.  2) Somehow (through a bacterial process, maybe? (ewww, gross!)) transform it into this tasty tasty substance that we all love so much.   A group of students, staff, and I now know a whole lot more about how to make this delicious food. We learned how to make (and eat) mozzarella and ricotta.  We also tackled the first stages of cheddar, which then needs to age a bit before it’s ready to eat.  Here’s a visual overview of the process:

Heating the milk in stainless steel pots.

With a little acid, the curds begin to separate from the whey.

Scooping the curds from the whey to then further drain the curds.

Through a process of heating, kneading, and stretching the curds, we made mozzarella.

A press (homemade from PVC piping, a wooden block, and a heavy brick) for draining the whey from the cheddar over several weeks.

Expectant cheese-lovers.